To Market, To Market: Business women, artisans join forces to sell goods

BRITTANIE HOOFARD

Published
6:00 pm CST, Wednesday, January 26, 2005

A local woman is providing affordable home furnishings to Woodlands residents while at the same time providing a place for local artists, designers and small business owners to display their wares.

Kathryn Driskill, a registered nurse who moved with her husband and children to The Woodlands three years ago, originally started her business "To Market, To Market" two years ago out of the family's home in Indian Springs.

Now she holds trunk shows each month at her new location, a souped-up U-Haul storage facility at 2700 Kuykendahl, south of Woodlands Parkway.

"When we first moved here, there just wasn't a lot of furniture or home décor (stores) here yet," she said. "And the places that were here just charged so much."

Driskill, who's three children are aged 12 and under, wanted a way to make money while working from home. So she began selling high-end home furnishings purchased at markets in New York and Dallas from her home.

She teamed up with some friends and together the women would take other ladies to market shows so they could buy goods at prices far lower than retail.

But Woodlands covenants prohibit residents from having trunk shows or garage sales at their homes. Those rules, in addition to space constraints, forced Driskill to move her business into a U-Haul storage facility.

"My home was the showroom, but the traffic got to be too much," she said.

Now, once a month, Driskill hosts "shows" in which local women can sell anything from paintings to floral designs to their own skills. Some of Driskill's friends, one who is an interior designer and another who sells jewelry, have booths at the show, along with other women including one who does faux finishes on paintable surfaces, and another from Israel who does oil paintings.

The next To Market, To Market show will be Jan. 30 from 1-6 p.m. in the B section of the storage facility.

All the vendors are Woodlands residents - most of them female, and the fee they pay to reserve a table goes toward the rent at the storage facility. Driskill said each month she sends out about 3,000 flyers, inviting shoppers to the sales.

The storage areas, which are each the size of a small room, feature garage doors on the outside and large doors on the inside that are linked by a common hallway. During a show, Driskill said nearly one whole corridor is filled with displays, up to 20 or 30 storage rooms.

The rooms are decorated so that from the inside they look just like a store, and all the goods sold are "high-end."

Annie Camp met Driskill through a mutual friend about a year and a half ago. The two women hit it off immediately, and when Driskill talked about starting To Market, To Market, Camp quickly jumped in.

Camp used to sell jewelry imported from Israel out of her home and at craft and home shows. Now, she said, selling at To Market, To Market is much easier on her.

"I can have my display set up all the time," she said. "And people can come by any time, all they have to do is call.

"Now I'm about to the point where I've built up my inventory enough that I can leave most of the stuff here and take the rest with me to shows."

Driskill said the open-store atmosphere allows people to shop without the high sales pressure of a trunk show or home sale, such as a Tupperware party.

"It's all cash-and-carry," she said. "It's not like you're ordering from Pampered Chef."

In between her shows, Driskill sells her own finds from the store by appointment. She said the U-Haul facility doesn't mind the business she and her friends generate, either.

"It's given them a lot of exposure," she said.

For now, Driskill said she's happy to work part time and raise her children.

"Maybe one day I will run a store, but I like doing it this way because I keep my costs down," she said. "I'm mostly just doing this because I enjoy it."

To make an appointment at To Market, To Market or for more information on booth rental, call (281) 352-6609.

Brittanie Hoofard may be reached via e-mail at bhoofard@mail.hcnonline.net.